‘Ahsoka’ Finally Hit Its Weird, Surprisingly Metal Stride

By Mike Redmond | TV | September 22, 2023 |

By Mike Redmond | TV | September 22, 2023 |

Previously on Ahsoka: After losing her battle with Baylan Skoll, a defeated Ahsoka finds herself in the World Between Worlds where she confronts her old Jedi master Anakin Skywalker. Through a trip into her past, Ahsoka learns to let go of her fear that a lifetime of fighting and Anakin’s tutelage will turn her to the Dark Side. After her body is rescued by Hera and her son Jacen, Ahsoka rejoins the world of living, more confident and powerful in her use of the Force. She navigates her ship into the mouth of a massive hyperspace-traveling whale and takes off after Sabine, who’s now Baylan’s prisoner on an intergalactic journey to Ezra Bridger. And Grand Admiral Thrawn…

Because I know you guys cheat on me and read other recaps, let me put my cards on the table: I fully agree with the overwhelming consensus that Ahsoka Episode 6 is easily the strongest yet. “Far, Far Away” clicked into a gear that, frankly, this show should’ve found sooner. Of course, pacing has always been Ahsoka’s Achilles heel, even with this episode. The front half of this series dicked around, and I’d be very curious to see the number on viewer retention, particularly after last week went balls-out on fan service aimed specifically at people who watched the cartoons. Admittedly, I fall into that category and ate that shit up, but a sincere thanks to the commenters who didn’t watch The Clone Wars and shared their thoughts on how those scenes hit. Your viewpoint is the one I’m always interested in the most because Ahsoka is taking a big gamble leaning into the animated series.

That said, Episode 6 still traverses through cartoon land by resuming Ahsoka’s focus on tying up a major loose end from Rebels, and surprisingly, it works thanks to the basic premise: The good guys want to find Ezra because he’s their friend, the bad guys want to find Thrawn because he can revive the Empire, and they’re both in the same place so there’s your conflict right there.

However, one of the good guys is going to take a knee this episode, and astoundingly, it’s the title character. Despite the huge deal over her blatantly Gandalf-like transition to “Ahsoka the White,” she’s right back to not trusting Sabine and pretty much acting like she did before last week’s dramatic rebirth. In fact, the only thing Ahsoka does this episode is drop a meta joke about how the first installment in a trilogy is always the best — one of two blatant nods to A New Hope in her short convo with David Tennant’s perfectly-voiced Huyang — which is extremely rich considering this entire show is already several layers deep when it comes to the strip-mining of Star Wars.

Anyway, with Ahsoka put on ice for the rest of the episode, the Eye of Sion arrives at its destination: The planet Peridea, which Morgan informs her companions is the original home of her people, the Dathomiri. So right out of the gate we know this place has a unique connection to the Force, and that fact’s about to be cemented real quick.

After shuttling down to the planet, Morgan, Baylan, Shin, and Sabine land at a structure that is yet another blatant grab from Lord of the Rings. The Minas Tirith vibes are off the charts. Upon their arrival, they’re greeted by the Great Mothers, giving the Nightsisters their first, full-on live-action debut. As the show has mentioned several times by now, they’re witches, and these three look the part. You don’t need the cartoons to get the gist here.

Right out of the gate, they’re not thrilled by Sabine’s presence and note that she “reeks of Jedi.” Interestingly, they don’t voice the same complaint about Baylan and Shin even though the latter clearly has her hackles up thanks to the Nightsister’s presence. Shin is not a fan.

With Sabine banished to a cell, Ahsoka delivered a moment that I honestly didn’t expect to happen until next week if not the final episode: The arrival of Thrawn. The Imperial warlord’s Star Destroyer, The Chimaera, is surprisingly intact, functional, and as foreboding as ever. It’s also DTF, which is the only way I can describe the absolutely wild visual choice here:

(Did I spend hours giggling over two different screengrabs in an effort to pick the most dong-like one? You bet, and clearly, the scrotal ambience pushed our champion over the edge. Do other recaps care this much? No. No, they do not. You’re welcome.)

Here’s my deal with Thrawn: I did not enjoy his presence in Rebels. Even though the original Timothy Zahn books are a beloved piece of my childhood, I don’t have any special reverence towards the character or anything like that. I just didn’t like Lars Mikkelsen’s voice acting coupled with the overly simplistic animation style. Not my cup of tea.

So, imagine my surprise when live-action Thrawn actually worked. Mikkelsen is still playing the part, but there’s something about having his physical performance in the mix. He’s putting just a little extra mustard on it, and it does the trick. I saw some complaints about his face being too blue, his eyes too red, and some quibbles about his outfit, but none of that registered to my notorious nitpicking ass.

What also helped sell Thrawn? The vibes, man. It’s hard to put into words, but that initial scene felt like I was watching old school, Expanded Universe covers come to life. The whole thing was weird, and somehow metal, in a way that live-action Star Wars has never been until now. As much as I’ve ragged on Ahsoka and Dave Filoni, he actually did what this franchise has desperately needed to do for a while now: Break out of its mold. Will Ahsoka stay that way? God, I hope.

After docking (heh heh) his ship, Thrawn arrives in the Nightsister’s tower flanked by a weird mish-mash of stormtroopers chanting his name in a pretty messed up tone. Their armor is patched together with random gold plates and red straps suggesting it’s been a struggle for Thrawn to keep his forces intact.

And then there’s this badass motherf*cker:

When our boy Enoch here (played by Wes Chatham) first turned to the camera, I almost said “yessss” out loud. Is he some old school character I’ve been dying to see? Nope! Dude is totally new. The whole death mask thing is just such a neat little touch. You can feel Filoni’s love for the EU books coming through with the design choice. It hit harder than Ariana Greenblatt’s Ahsoka because for a brief moment, Star Wars was exciting and new again.

As for what’s going on here, nothing good. I missed this during my watch, but Polygon’s Susana Polo did a great job breaking down Thrawn’s new legion of Night Troopers. Remember how Marrok turned into an undead fart cloud when Ahsoka cut him open? That was clearly foreshadowing for what’s happening here. (Plus, all the talk of emptying the catacombs and the space coffins probably should have tipped me off.) An undead army hidden in a far off land threatening to come down and destroy everything? Where have I heard that before?

As for the Sabine situation, Thrawn already has a solution to that problem: Let her find Ezra. Under the guise of honoring Baylan’s deal, Thrawn provides Sabine with her weapons, armors, and a mount to reunite with her friend. In icy Thrawn fashion, he lets her know there’s a good chance Ezra is dead anyway, but if she does find him, it won’t matter. Thrawn fully intends to strand them here.

To drive that point home, Enoch gets Sabine loaded up and gives her a warm send-off: “Die well.” Fortunately, for our hero, she’s ready to slap ass and slap ass she does. Not long into her journey, Sabine gets jumped by a group of bandits, and we finally get to see her fierce fighting skills in action. There’s a reason she could go toe-to-toe with Shin, and it’s on full display as she shrugs off blaster hits, fires off kill shots, and effortlessly switches to her lightsaber.

With Sabine on our way, Thrawn alters her deal with Baylan by sending the mercenary and his apprentice after her. His instructions are to let Sabine reunite with Ezra to fulfill Baylan’s promise, then kill them. Baylan doesn’t question his orders, but he probably should because Thrawn is totally fine with leaving him and Shin behind, too. The dude packs light.

On their way, Baylan and Shin discuss his past with the Jedi, and it’s still not entirely clear what he’s up to. However, Baylan does reveal that there is a power on the planet that is calling to him, and it’s strong enough that the Nightsisters fear it. He also drops the phrase “Bokken Jedi” to describe the ones who were trained in the “wild” after the Order fell. I’m not sure if you’ve heard this before, but the Jedi are like samur—

Unaware that she’s being followed, Sabine stumbles across a Noti, a crab-like creature on Peridea’s surface who also happens to be wearing a Rebel symbol on a necklace. Not only that, but the creature knows Ezra, and once again, I’m surprised that this show didn’t punt this reveal as well. Fully expecting Sabine to hear a voice and turn around as the episode fades to black, that does not happen as she casually reunites with her long lost friend in the Noti village.

If I have one quibble with this episode, it’s how oddly inert this pivotal moment plays. These characters haven’t seen each other for a decade, and it’s like they ran into each other at Target. The reunion is pretty damn anticlimactic, but it’s quickly papered over by the dramatic tension of Sabine not telling Ezra what she did to find him or that she has no way to go home, which he very much wants to do. Fortunately, help is on the way.

Back at the tower, Ahsoka’s approach is detected by the Nightsisters, prompting Thrawn to calculate a plan. Although, he’ll require the Nightsisters’ Dark Magic one more time…

Mike Drops

— Setting aside the dramatic tension killer of knowing that ultimately Thrawn will be defeated and replaced by the First Order because Star Wars is nothing if not constantly painting itself into a corner, I can’t help but think how weird it is that Luke Skywalker is just hanging out while all of this is going on. Obviously, Thrawn is going to return and rebuild the Empire, so are we really supposed to swallow that Luke won’t help if that happens? Or if Baylan does whatever the hell he’s doing? He showed up to babysit Grogu, so it’s not like he doesn’t have time. I guess what I’m getting at is what are the odds that Luke stays on the bench? Filoni seems to be hell-bent on rejuvenating the EU, particularly Heir to the Empire, which heavily revolved around Luke Skywalker. More importantly, will they keep doing Deep Fake Luke or finally recast the guy? These are the nerd thoughts that plague me.

— The wiener castle… hahahaha… went into the spaceship! HAHAHA!

See you next week.